Beneath a Bethel Page 10

  “I loved you like a father, Barnaby, I thought...” I broke off, taking a sobbing breath. “I thought I had finally found happiness, a place where I could forget my pain, but I see now that pain cannot be escaped. It follows you until you face it.”

  “Angora—” he began, but I pushed him from me, shoving him back against the table with a scream, forcing his hands from me just as I forced away his lies and his kindness. I couldn't bear it, to know that he could have been cutting into my body gladly, tossing me into the furnace and sealing me within a set of teeth forever. That I could have been within those teeth for any number of our clients, that when Lady Bethany had spoken her wish, it could have been my soul granting it, giving her the River Eldwen that had once been mine.

  He fell from me, surprise colouring his face before he hit the floor, the table upended, blood spilling onto the earthen ground as the body parts scattered, the thin flesh still attached at the neck snapping so that the head rolled away beneath the pile of bodies. I seized the axe, still screaming as I held it high above my head, bearing down on him as he tried to pull himself away, his hands struggling to find purchase on the wet ground.

  The room was suddenly crowded with spectres, their glowing forms filling the corners, wavering like they were caught in the current of the Eldwen, young men and women that had sought to fulfil their desires, to ease the same craving that I too had suffered. A craving they had been shamed for, that they had to keep hidden, but in truth, was as natural as living. They surged forward as a wave, their empty mouths gaping in wide grins, their eyes alight, burning for revenge as my grip on the axe tightened. Their pleas rang in my ears, the same pleas that had fallen on the deaf ears of the gatherers, that had been trapped within porcelain for so long, urging me on.

  They deserved this—we deserved this—for all we had suffered, for the lives we could have had, the love we could have found if we had not had death and ash forced upon us.

  “Nothing is worth this,” I panted, my words lost in the swing of the axe, my arms bringing it down in one final motion.

  I fell to my knees before him as the spectres vanished around us, fading to nothing though their presence still remained, craving release. I trembled as I took in what I had done, the axe embedded in his chest, his blood flowing freely to join that of his victims already saturating the ground. He moved his head, turning it to stare at me as one hand reached for the handle of the axe.

  “No!” I cried, reaching out to stop him but he was too quick, yanking the axe free and dropping it with a clatter beside his prone form. Given leave, the blood began to rush forth in earnest, his shirt front suddenly seeping with it. Desperately, I placed my hands over the wound, sobs shaking my body as I tried to stem the flow.

  “Angora, it is too late…” he wheezed, blood colouring the corners of his smiling mouth. He reached out, gently pressing a hand to my arm.

  “It's not; we can get help, you can heal, you can heal,” I wept, my promises sounding hollow even to my own ears.

  I had done this. In my rage and sorrow, I had taken the life of the only person that had helped me in my time of need. It didn’t matter why he had done it; it didn’t matter that he had known, not now. As his body weakened, surrendering to the same death that surrounded us, none of that mattered. I leaned over him, holding him to me as I spent my grief, my cries soundless as my body shook. His hand stroked my back but I could feel the strength leaving it, the rise and fall of his chest slowing.

  “I'm sorry, oh Barnaby, I'm so sorry,” I moaned, pressing my forehead to his, my hands now dripping with his blood. His fingers wiped away my tears and snot as my mother used to when I had hurt myself as a child, smearing blood on my brow and cheek.

  “It matters little,” he coughed, each breath rattling through his chest now. “Perhaps I was wrong. You are not like me at all. Perhaps you are something better.”

  He smiled at me, his teeth those same leaf green ones that had captivated me on our first meeting at Hendrik's, luminous within his fading face. “Use me for your teeth, Angora; you have been like a son to me and I do not wish us to be parted.”

  “No!” I wailed, recoiling from the thought. It was so abhorrent. He held onto my hand, clasping it to his chest, the smile still upon his face as I, sobbing, shook my head.

  “Please, Angora. It is all I know, I wouldn’t know how to be anything else,” he whispered, his red eyes bright with love even though I had caused this, even though all of this was mine to blame.

  “I don't want to be alone…” I confessed as his grasp on my hand loosened despite my tight grip.

  “And you won’t be if you do. I’ll always be with you.” He sighed heavily, pain evident in his voice.

  We spoke no more as he bled to death, the wound in his chest a pulsing, vivid thing. I gripped his hand, staring down into his eyes as the light left them slowly, retreating to a world I couldn’t follow to. Time stilled as his skin grew cold and the blood congealed around us. Was this to be his grave, a hidden room under the house, surrounded by his victims? I had not meant for it to be this way, for me to be the justice that brought the punishment. The revenge sat illy on me, once again another loved one lost to me. More memories to hide away for fear of tarnishing them; more heartache and nightmares. And this time it was all my doing.

  Through the tears, I picked up the axe again, the heat from the furnace enveloping me as I began to hack through his limbs, intent on what I must do.

  His last wish.

  The house was silent when I finally ascended the main staircase, the box of ground bones held tightly in my arms, my shirt and breeches stiff with dried blood. I heeded the workroom’s call, sitting at one of the long tables, my hands moving without the need for thought. Outside, time continued to pass, the sun rising and falling as I laboured. The sound of sleighs, the chatter of families echoing from the street below. The sounds of life.

  Inside, there was only absence, the heavy feeling that death exudes, a palpable ache that now spread throughout the rooms. The moments of expectation, raised glances as if they are about to appear. The tangibility silence suddenly had, and the weight of it pressing down. Time had stopped, the days no longer broken up by meals and conversations, nor by the need for sleep. I neither ate nor rested, the days slipping by without my consent as the kiln worked. The long stretches between each firing, that I had once filled with painting, were now a void, one where I sat with hands in my lap, my eyes unseeing as memories played inside my mind.

  For the first time, I allowed myself to feel them all. Gillis’s laughter as he spun me around in the street after our hushed confessions of love. Watching my parents softly talking long into the night when they thought I was sleeping as a child. Eve braiding ribbons into my curls, tying them around my horns, her small fingers struggling with the bows as she giggled.

  And Barnaby. Barnaby sat within this very room, bent over with a paintbrush in his hand, humming to himself, smiling broadly when he caught my eye, and the sun shining through the window so brightly that dust motes could be seen floating in the air. Though each memory brought me agony, it also reminded me why I was still here, and what I must do for those I had lost.

  When my task was complete, I bathed, scrubbing his dried blood from my fur, the soapy water turning brown with it, then I pulled on new clothes. I avoided the mirror, the teeth within my mouth so foreign to me after all this time without them, and the sensation of them like a stolen gift, one I didn't deserve. After all this time, I had finally obtained what I so desired, but I only felt empty.

  The stains of blood trailing the hallways from my ascension upstairs made no difference to my red boots as I walked the halls, my hand gripping a poker from the fireplace in my room. I couldn’t leave the house like this. It was a mass grave for unwilling bodies, their souls laid out like trophies.

  I began in the workroom, destroying everything, from the master moulds to the gleaming, unfinished teeth. The drying shelves holding them tumbled to the floor, shaking t
he room asunder as pieces of shattered porcelain scattered. The books Barnaby had so loved, their spines rent, their ripped pages fluttering as if in a plea for mercy. Pots of paint thrown against the wall, smashing, brilliant hues of colour wasted, their large droplets falling to the floor.

  It wasn’t simply for the spectres that I did this, though I hoped that by breaking every set of teeth, they might in some way be freed. Most of all, it was for me, this house symbolising a dream to paint, to be more than my birth allowed me, and while it stood, I would always feel the temptation to return. To continue as Barnaby did, alone.

  I didn’t know if I was strong enough to resist.

  In the living room, I threw the curtains into the fire, creating a path of cushions and books for the flames to traverse, welcoming them into the rest of the house. The poker ripped through the armchairs, dashed glass teacups to shards, all with the crackling sound of the exploring fire behind me. Its bright orange and red tongues lapped at the walls, paper twisting as it charred and fell to the scorched floor. Pillows exploded into infernos while books curled upon themselves, their pages blackened in seconds. The intense heat drove me away into the hall, sweat beading on my brow as I knocked down the portraits of clients, the glass fracturing through their smiles.

  When I finally reached the withdrawing rooms, my arms aching and my breathing heavy, smoke had begun to billow down the stairs as the middle floor was consumed by the hungry blaze. I flung the doors open, advancing upon the glass counters of teeth that sat grinning upon their pillows. Porcelain and glass cut into my hands as I pushed each one over, pulling the mirrors from the wall and striking each set of teeth until they crumbled. The fire was dancing down the stairs, caressing the walls and leaving dark streaks upon it like bruises.

  Chandeliers melted under its heat, falling to the floor with crashes, the flames following my lead of destruction.

  I heard the whines of the hounds while moving through the wreckage of the withdrawing rooms with shards of porcelain covering my chest, the remnants of so many teeth littering the floor like bright jewels. They bounded around in their pen when I entered, their tongues lolling, completely naive to the fate of their master. I unlocked and pushed open the heavy double doors, before rushing back to free the hounds from their pen and urging them out into the snow. They leaped from the door before me, bouncing down the street with such joy as I hastily shrugged on a thick fur coat and softly pulled the door shut behind me, trapping the approaching flames inside.

  The fire was swiftly consuming the air, escaping from the warped window frames, the smoke rough and insistent in the back on my throat as it coloured the night sky grey. It wouldn’t be long before the flames licking at the windows would spread, dancing over the houses playfully, claiming all it touched.

  I realised now that I had never been at fault for my demise, the heavy shame that I had felt had been misplaced all this time. I had been born to temptation, Elbridge and its inhabitants creating that desire within me, raising me to see how perfection was denied me and fostering hatred for what was mine. When I had tried to achieve what others took for granted, Gillis had seen a chance to twist it to his own gain, violating me. And Elbridge, it had cast me aside for something forced upon me, turning the blame on me for harbouring the desire, not the culprit for the deed. They closed their eyes to the clues, preferring to continue benefiting from a truth withheld. Those privileged mouths closed tightly over their teeth, refusing to ask the questions they must.

  But no longer. I would not let Elbridge sit idly by and benefit from the lives lost to their vanity, nor the souls it deemed too damaged to be part of society. I had thought I had found my purpose when Barnaby had taken me in, but it was only now, my eyes alight with the blaze raging through the Master’s Guild, that I came to understand what it truly was.

  To expose the truth.

  To find every Floris Master and rip their lives apart the way they had mine, to expose every secret room beneath the city, and to herd the gatherers of teeth and souls into the frigid waters of the Eldwen.

  To free the souls that had been trapped and misused for so long. To make Elbridge see, to make it understand what the true cost of magic was, and what those fickle wishes were born from.

  My tongue brushed against my new teeth, the thought of Barnaby being beside me in spirit if not in flesh comforting. He might not have supported me, or even understood, but I knew he would have still loved me, for what is the task of a father but to do just that?

  I began to walk, bundled in furs, my hands thrust into my pockets with my head held high in the falling snow. My steps were not hurried even as others ran from their doors, cries filling the air as the residents fought to control the blaze. People ran, hauling buckets of water from the nearby streams, slipping in their haste to reach the flames. What had been a silent street was suddenly full of families sobbing and hounds capering across bridges as smoke swept along the road. The snow and the people weren’t strong enough to dampen the fire, but still they tried, their gloved hands throwing it in great balls, even as the wind coaxed the flames higher. Shoulders jostled me, fear and soot-streaked faces blurring past, but I only strolled forward, the chaos at my back.

  Once, I had been full of churning fear but now, finally, I was serene, my warning to the Floris Masters a bright beacon. I grinned broadly, flashing my teeth, white and smooth like the bones they had been formed from as a plume of dark smoke rose from my lips.

  A wish lost within the surrounding smoke.

  A wish yet to be fulfilled.

  The End

  About The Author

  April-Jane Rowan was born with a morbid fascination that she turned into writing so she could explain away her strangeness. Luckily for her, she found she rather liked it, so for many years, she has been creating bizarre, dark tales. When not writing, she can be found lurking in graveyards, libraries and museums. She lives in Sweden with her two partners and their pack of beasties.

  Instagram: @TheLiteraryChamber

  april-janerowan@outlook.com

  About The Artist

  Nem Rowan is April’s husband and long-time co-writer. He is a writer of LGBTQ+ fiction and enjoys doing character art and line illustrations.

  nemrowan.com

  nem.rowan@outlook.com

  A Gurt Dog Press

  Publication

  2020